There were some doubters to how good Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World would be, and trolling through other websites there seemed to be a lot of negative comments towards the film. Me, I couldn’t wait, and while I thought Universal went a bit crazy with their onslaught of trailers, clips and TV spots, the impact of all the marketing paid off, big time.

Scoring a 7.7% rating on IMDB, most critics have praised the fourth film in the Jurassic Park franchise, and while it doesn’t happen often, we have on our hands a true blockbuster which is favoured by critics and the movie going punters slepding their cash this weekend, and they spent a lot!

Jurassic World, after the barrage of marketing and positive reviews, has become (at this moment in time) the second biggest opening film in the history of the US box office, and the biggest global opening film of all time. Now that is impressive, and what we mustn’t forget here, is that the Dino blockbuster doesn’t even have the help of being on a holiday weekend, and many parts of Europe of enjoying a heatwave, yet here we are, with a record breaking film which was projected to achieve half of what it has made at the box office.

In the US the film was expected to open just past the $100 million mark, but instead the film is now looking to finish on an almighty $204.6 million, which puts it in second place behind The Avengers. The Avengers holds the record for the biggest US opening weekend of all time, but it took $207.4 million, and while it is expected Jurassic World will finish of $204.6 million, there are some predicting between $204.6 and $207 million, with others believing it will surpass The Avengers to become the biggest opening film in US history.

While those stats are impressive, the film also opened all over the world, bringing in a whopping $307.2 million, the biggest opening weekend for a film outside the US ever! The previous record holder was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 with $314 million. And while that is most impressive, adding the US opening figures to the rest of the worlds figures, and you have a worldwide box office opening of an almighty $511.8 million, the biggest worldwide opening ever!

It is No. 1 in all 66 markets overseas and averaging 70% market share around the globe.

The top-grossing territory so far is China with $100.8M across the five-day frame. Falling in line next in the Top 5 are the UK/Ireland with $29.6M (£19.3M); Mexico at $16.2M; Korea with $14.4M; and France on $12.5M.

Deadline went into more detail about the films IMAX opening, which also broke records:

Jurassic World played to a raptor-ous global reception in IMAX with a record-stomping $44.1M, outperforming Iron Man 3’s record opening weekend of $28.8M by 50%. On 806 screens worldwide, JW in IMAX also set a one-day record of $13M on Friday. In overseas plays only on Saturday, the $6.5M haul is the best-ever one day international gross for the large-format company. In total, offshore markets delivered a $23.5M weekend, for $53K per screen at 443 IMAX locations. The dinos overcame Extinction, besting Transformers 4’s previous record of $16.7M as best international IMAX opening weekend.

Individual markets had fantastic per-IMAX-screen averages including the UAE at $119K, Taiwan at $96K, New Zealand at $94K, Australia with $87K, Singapore at $86K, Korea with $85K, France’s $73K, and the Netherlands’ $70K. IMAX screens were also the top-grossing location in many countries including the UK, China, Denmark, Mexico, Brazil, the UAE, Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, and Hong Kong.

An $11.8M IMAX score fell short of the Middle Kingdom record set by Avengers: Age Of Ultron in April ($17.05M) but pushed a strong per-screen average of $57K. Eight of the top 10 China locations were IMAX engagements.

Not only is Jurassic World the biggest opening weekend that Universal has ever had (the next closest film is Furious 7 with $147.1M) it’s the biggest that co-financier Legendary has ever had, which includes the Dark Knight films.

Jurassic World outperformed even the most optimistic of forecasts for the last four days, surprising nearly everyone. Its $82.8M Friday was the third best Friday opening on record, with only Age of Ultron ($84.4M) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 ($91M) still ahead of it.

Basically, Jurassic World is a monster, and no doubt sequels are currently being discussed. It also confirms star Chris Pratt as a box office megastar, and even he was happy to joke about being in more films. When asked whether he was in talks for further films, he responded:

Twenty-two years after the events of ‘Jurassic Park’ (1993), Isla Nublar now features a fully functioning dinosaur theme park, Jurassic World, as originally envisioned by John Hammond. After 10 years of operation and visitor rates declining, in order to fulfill a corporate mandate, a new attraction is created to re-spark visitor’s interest, which backfires horribly.

Matt Wavish

A keen enthusiast and collector of all horror and extreme films. I can be picky as i like quality in my horror. This doesn't necessarily mean it has to be a classic, but as long as it has something to impress me then i'm a fan. I watch films by the rule that if it doesn't bring out some kind of emotive response then it aint worth watching.